"Client.exe", Nvidia and integrated graphics

Hi,

i found there is a problem with the name of Client.exe and Nvidias
recognition for games.
This problem is for Laptops with a Nvidia graphics card and additionally a
integrated graphics chip.
Up to recently i was playing with ~20fps on my laptop.
Then i noticed PoE is not using my dedicated graphics card.

Even after specifically adding PoE to always use dedicated graphics, it didn't work.
Reason seems to be, that Nvidia uses a name-recognition for the exe-name and
for me lists PoE's client.exe as belonging to "Phantasy Star Online 2".
(Which i never even played before.)

A solution is to rename the client.exe to someting like poe.exe.
After doing this, my fps went up greatly (since it is using the dedicated graphics now.)
However, after every patch, i have to replace the poe.exe with the new client.exe, which is
cumbersome.

Also you may find that some laptop-users don't notice poe not using the dedicated graphics
and simply assume, that it is just slow (like i did for quite a while).

More about my spec if needed:

Thanks for sharing this, I'm also experiencing that problem. Looks like I'll have to rename my .exe for now.

Hope the devs would find a solution for this. Walking in a dungeon looks a bit twitchy on my screen.

I am having this exact same problem. I am running a Lenovo Y580, and it wont let me use my dedicated graphics. It is also listing the game as phantasy star online 2.

"

NevEragon wrote:

I am having this exact same problem. I am running a Lenovo Y580, and it wont let me use my dedicated graphics. It is also listing the game as phantasy star online 2.

You can right click the .exe file and choose "high performance NVIDIA Processor". That did the trick for me, but you'll have to constantly do that right clicking thing after that. Double clicking on the .exe file makes the game crash for the game couldn't determine which video card must it use.

I had the same problem
Your advice to rename the .exe worked for me

Thx a lot!

When I try to rename it downloads the Client.exe anyway and it still doesnt work

Question:

How could you know if the game is using the dedicated grapchis or not?

Thanks

Though I'm not part of Beta testing, I downloaded the game for the Open Beta and face this problem in the login screen, uber low fps.

"

Valmar wrote:

Question:

How could you know if the game is using the dedicated grapchis or not?

Thanks

There are few ways:
1. You will notice very poor fps in game, if you use something like FRAPS or MSI Afterburner's On Screen Display(OSD); the fps will the shown on screen and you can see that it's very very poor. If you don't have either of those, it is still noticeable by the very bad lags. In my case, I can see each frame stop for a seconds or so then skip a few and show the next one. (Imagine playing Crysis on a Pentium 3 800MHz if that helps.)
2. If you have NVidia GPU Activity notification icon in your taskbar(bottom left, beside the clock/calendar), clicking(while the game is running) will display all applications that is using the Dedicated NVidia GPU. Any application using the Intel GPU will not be shown here.
3. If you use MSI Afterburner, you may notice the OSD appear in a different colour or doesn't appear at all. This happens for me atleast. If a game is using the Intel card then the OSD appears black and illegible, even though I set the font colour as Green.
4. If you use MSI Afterburner(or any other application that lets you see your GPU's current temperature), you will notice that the temperature remains same when the game is running and does not increase more than a degree or 2(maybe 5 at max).
5. If you multitask while running the game, your system may feel a lot more slower than it should and may have occasional response delays/pauses while moving the mouse or typing.

You can check any of the above mentioned ways with any game that does not feel laggy/has proper fps, and you'll easily notice the differences. Hope this helps.

EDIT:
Another temporary fix(probably) is to open the NVidia Control Panel>Manage 3D Settings> under Global Settings change "Preferred graphics processor" to "High-performance NVidia Processor" from "Auto-Select". Worked for me this way, and although I never used this before so can't say too much on it I believe this changes the settings for all applications running in your system, making everything use the Dedicated GPU. Not sure on it though, gotta check.

Well to avoid the annoyance of needing to rename it after each patching, you could use a junction or a symbolic link or something.

I also have this issue where my integrated Nvidia chip recognizes PoE's 'client.exe' as 'Phantasy Star Online 2', and will not apply Nvidia graphics to the game.

Kudos to Rayshan for the renaming fix; but I would humbly suggest that the executable be renamed by Grinding Gear to something less generic.